Home
by Twizardck
Summary: I lay here in my underground cell, unsure of what is going on. Then a certain man is dumped in with me - one from my past that will bring it all back. PruAus oneshot, yaoi themes, AU with human names used. T just to be safe.


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**I do not own Axis Powers Hetalia**

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**Author's Note: Okay... So this was a Christmas present for my very good friend and bruder. She asked for a PruAus fic, and thus I wrote this. It is a little different from my usual work, it being an AU prisoner of war fic, which I have never come anywhere close to... Well, anyways, I thought I should share. Merry Belated Christmas, to all of you PruAus fans! Please read and review 3  


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Earthen walls and not a hint of sunlight give the unwanted idea that you might be buried alive. I lay upon my cot as this thought crosses my mind, my eyes closed in order to not see the packed in dirt. Yes, there is light down here, but from small lamps out in the hall, not in the cell itself. The door is steel, and the fiery lighting comes in only through a small window at the top of this exit. Or entrance, as it only ever seems to be.

No, no, it wasn't just an entrance, I suppose. There had been another man, who had slept on that other cot across the room, who had been here for a day or two when I first arrived, however long ago that had been. They had taken him away and I had not seen him since. I wasn't even sure of his name; he had been completely insane when he had left.

The noise of a scuffle outside my door brings me to my feet and I rise slowly and go to the window. On the tips of my toes, I can just barely see the hall and my eyes sweep back and forth until they light on some figures nearer the end of the hall. I watch uninterestedly as three guards pull a man farther towards the rooms, before I realize that they are making for my door. I step back quickly and return to my cot.

The door opens, they push the new man in, the door closes. I listen for the click of the lock, wincing slightly as I am not disappointed, then examine the newcomer, frowning slightly in concentration. He looks familiar, like a half remembered dream from years before. He seemed to also recognize me, but far more than I did him.

He has red eyes, and they open wide as he walks shakily towards me. I can tell that he is physically drained from the issue with the guards and step forward to steady him before he collapses in exhaustion. I try to move towards the bed that will be his, but he refuses to go anywhere unless it is towards my own. So I relent and change directions and we sit down together, my head spinning from the familiarity of the motions.

For a while we just sit, the weight of his body on mine as he catches his breath. I can tell that he has been through much in the battles, he is lighter than my body remembers and it is taking him a while to catch his breath. Every time I move a bit he makes a small noise to get me to stop, and a thought in the back of my mind tells me that our positions have been swapped, that it is normally me that is the one resting on the other.

I suppose that I have been here too long, and that is the reason I cannot remember precisely the situation around this man.

After a while he sits up and takes my head in his hands so that he can look into my violet eyes, and he speaks two words that tickle in the back of my mind with how much I _know_ them. "Roddy… Liebe…" is all that he says, but it makes me feel warm inside and all of a sudden I'm the one resting on him, and a couple tears are running down my face as a I hide them in his shirt, which is dirty, and I hate such things, but when was the last time I was clean?

And his name sounds on my tongue and I know a little bit more. "Gilbert," comes out of my mouth and this opens up my mind to a childhood of laughs and an adolescence of useless pranks and rivalry, an early adulthood of held hands and walks in the park and sleeping under the stars. Arguments and tears and making up and out, the fire of love hot.

Then the draft cards and being moved to separate divisions and the breathless waiting for letters, the scribble of a pen on paper, drafting one back, and the first days of me being here where every moment was consumed by thoughts of him until my mind splintered a little and it all became about trying to keep from insanity. And then even as he slipped from my waking mind, remembering in my dreams, praying that he wouldn't be captured too, but half hoping that he would, for I was sure that I was never getting out.

I am vaguely aware of hands rubbing my back and a soft shushing noise. He is trying to comfort me, though he is the one that is new here. The one who doesn't know what to expect of the endless days of waiting and fear and the escape attempts half planned in your mind, never to be carried out. I feel that I should be comforting him, that I should be stronger now than I have been here so long. But it is still him whispering soothing words into my ear, for he was always the stronger one, even after all this time. And about that…

"How long has it been?" I ask, knowing that he will understand the question. I pull out from his chest and look back at his eyes, almost afraid to know the answer.

His hand is on my cheek and he's wearing a sad smile. My mind matches this face to the one newly remembered and can tell that he is older, but I knew that. It had been at least a year and a half that we had both been in the battles, and from his expression, I'd been here for at least as long.

"Three years, almost." I can feel my eyes widen, I know there is shock written all over my face. There is no way to keep track of time where you cannot see the passing of days, and I had given up on trying to count the one meal a day a while back. Three years…

My thoughts vanish in a pool of red and then it doesn't matter how long I've been here, but all the time that was missed. And now he is here, coincidentally placed in my room. Our eyes locked, I suddenly feel like I'm pitching forward and have the strangest sensation of falling before our lips meet and then gravity has no effect any more.

The kiss is hungry and desperate, full of desire, but still sweet, like I remember. I forget the dirt walls and the miserable situation, the metal door with the one little window letting in light that is horribly not the sun, the tiny cot on the floor that I have apparently been lying on for nearly three years. It feels like the grass by the lake back home, wet with morning dew and at the bottom of a hill that he just tumbled me down from, both of us with wet hair and bright eyes.

And when it's finally broken for the last time, both of us even more exhausted, our legs are tangled together and my head is resting on his chest, our arms around each other and it isn't like we are prisoners of war at all. I drift in and out of sleep for a while, but Gilbert stays awake, his arms around me. Often I feel his eyes and would look back at him if I wasn't at loathe to move my head from its position. All the memories slowly return and I realize that the reason that being here feels like torture when they do nothing to harm you was because of lack of Gilbert. It had been worse than losing an arm or a leg, it had been losing most of my heart.

For days or weeks or however long it is we always have some sort of physical contact, making up for the lost years as much as we can. The second cot remains untouched and every time I sleep it is with my head on Gilbert's chest, his arms around me. We don't speak much, for it is dangerous to do so, but spoken words are unnecessary. Our fingers grow brown from streaking them through the dirt on the wall, forming letters and communicating in that way, silently, easily wiped off, the guards never knowing anything of what we say.

Though our situation is terrible, it doesn't seem that way anymore.

I am jolted awake by the sound of tromping feet, then our door is kicked in. A man in our military's uniform gestures at us to come out, and we do without a second thought, Gilbert going ahead and holding onto my hand.

We follow him out into the sunlight, and it is blinding, so blinding, but absolutely wonderful. I hear happy laughter from the other prisoners, but I'm not looking at them. Only at Gilbert, for I can see him properly now and he is smiling, all for me.

A week later we stand on top of a grassy hill, talking about useless things like the weather and supper tonight. Below us the lake glimmers in the dawn light and as I am distracted by this he pushes me just the slightest bit, enough to get me to lose my balance and stumble down the hill. I am about to reprimand him but then he is right there, grabbing onto my hand and pulling me close. We fall down next to the lake and the grass is wet with morning dew. We kiss, and it isn't anything like the one in the cell, it's relaxed, happy, and in the most wonderful place in the world.

Home.

Though I suppose that once Gilbert came, that little war prison could have been home too. After all… Home is where the heart is.


End file.
